“Ready for a surprise? Money DOES equal access in Washington”

Two political science graduate students are now seeking to bring some precision to that discussion through the kind of randomized, controlled study used to test the impact of pharmaceuticals.

Joshua Kalla at Yale University and David Broockman at the University of California, Berkeley, are out today with the results of a novel field experiment that measured how campaign donations – even the prospect of them – alter the behavior of members of Congress and their staff….

It’s worth noting that all those who met with congressional offices were real CREDO members or political donors, none of whom knew they were part of an experiment.

The results: Only 2.4 percent of the offices made the member of Congress or chief of staff available when they believed those attending were just constituents, but 12.5 percent did when they were told the attendees were political donors.